Recently, demands for high-resolution and high-quality pictures have increased in various fields of applications. As pictures have higher resolution and higher quality, the amount of information on the pictures also increases.
With a growing amount of information, multi-functional devices and networks with various environments are introduced. Accordingly, the same content may be utilized with different levels of quality.
Specifically, as terminals are able to support diverse qualities of pictures and various network environments are established, a picture with general quality is enabled in one environment while a higher-quality picture may be available in another environment.
For example, a user may enjoy video content purchased through a portable terminal on a large-screen display with higher resolution at home.
In recent years, as high definition (HD) broadcast services are available, a large number of users are getting used to high-resolution and high-quality videos and service providers and service users also pay attention to ultrahigh-definition (UHD) services having a resolution four times higher than HDTV.
Thus, there is a need to provide scalability to video quality, for example, the image quality, resolution, size and frame rate of a video, based on high-efficiency encoding and decoding methods on a high-capacity video so as to offer varied qualities of video services in different environments for users' demands. Further, discussions on various video processing methods involved in scalability are also necessary.